The JANDEL ENGINEERING LTD. Cylindrical four point probe is available in a special version for use in a high Vacuum environment.
The Jandel cylindrical probe head has been successfully used
in vacuum that was at 1 x 10^-10m bar. The application was
described in the "Journal of Physics: Condens. Matter 3
(1991) S291-S296"
It is basically the Jandel cylindrical probe with certain
modifications viz:
All the connections are crimped, and instead of the usual
wire lead, the brass terminal pins are replaced by
hypodermic tube and extended through the top of the probe
head and vacuum wire crimped into each separately. Thus
there are four insulated conductors to be connected to the
measuring equipment.
The four conductor wires from the probe can be supplied to
Jandel by the purchaser, or Jandel will supply the probe
with wire that is Teflon coated with 20 silver plated copper
conductors 0.1 mm diameter, which is reasonably flexible.
The probe head is supplied with all of the usual components
except the insulating pad is ruby, the tension adjusting
screw is Teflon, and the connecting wires are crimped into
hypodermic tube material instead of being soldered
internally into brass pins. Non-anodized aluminum alloy
is used for the body, nose-piece, and top, instead of the
usual anodized material.
Material involved are:
- 6262 Al alloy
- Virgin Teflon
- Tungsten carbide needles
- Steel piano wire springs
- Anstenitic stainless steel screws
- Ruby (single crystal alumina) jewel guides
- Hypodermic needle tubing about dia. 1.5 mm
- Phospohor bronze connecting ligaments (to enable the needle
connections to flex)
- No blind holes
The characteristics for the probe need to be defined, i.e.,
spring load, needle tip radii, spacing, and whether a linear
or square probe pattern is preferred.
It has a 1" diameter body and is 1.9" high (25.4mm x 48.5mm high). The
probe weighs 40g.